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First Nations confident courts will stop Kinder Morgan pipeline

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By Serge Otsi Simon

Wed., Oct. 4, 2017timer3 min. read

Lawyers for the federal government are sitting in a Vancouver courtroom this week on opposite sides of seven First Nations who are challenging the federal approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion tarsands pipeline and tanker project, while more than 100 First Nations across Canada and tribes in the United States stand in support.

I can’t imagine that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who claims to be a vocal advocate for improving the lives of First Nation communities, can be happy about this. The problem is, by approving the Kinder Morgan project last November, he is the reason for this court case and conflict.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s approval was based on the National Energy Board’s (NEB) review of the project — the same broken and biased NEB process that Trudeau himself had roundly criticized and that he had promised to overhaul before making any decision on the Kinder Morgan project.

Such broken promises have been disappointing to First Nations who had high expectations after the Harper years. Yet, here First Nations are back in court challenging a federal approval of a B.C. tarsands pipeline and tanker project — almost two years to the day when First Nations challenged another B.C. tarsands pipeline and tanker project: the now-defeated Enbridge Northern Gateway project.

I personally made the trip out West at the time to support the start of the First Nation court cases challenging Northern Gateway. Out of that East-West solidarity was born a continentwide treaty that united Indigenous people to stop all of the tarsands expanding pipeline projects from poisoning our water and threatening climate chaos.

One year later, the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion launched on the East and West Coasts and has today been signed by 150 First Nations and U.S. tribes, with most member nations located along the four proposed tarsands pipeline routes: Kinder Morgan, Line 3, Keystone XL and Energy East.

As anyone knows who has followed all the pipelines spills the last few years, pipelines are ticking time bombs: the three companies (Kinder Morgan, TransCanada and Enbridge) looking to build the four tarsands pipelines have been responsible for one spill a week on average in the United States since 2010. And if you still buy the oil industry line that tankers are now safe after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, try googling “tanker spill” and Greece or South Korea.

What’s more, at a time when we need to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, we can’t allow these pipelines to further expand the tarsands, an industry whose skyrocketing emissions have been the main driver of Canada’s rising emissions over the last few decades.

I’m confident the courts will once again side with First Nations and reverse the federal approval of the Kinder Morgan project, just like they did in the Enbridge Northern Gateway case. Courts have historically dragged government kicking and screaming to the reconciliation table, forcing them to minimally recognize and respect Indigenous rights.

It is worth noting as well that the case of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs against Trudeau’s approval of Enbridge’s Line 3 tarsands pipeline is also currently making its way through the courts.

Indigenous people in Canada and the United States, as we witnessed in Standing Rock, are not backing down. We will win this fight. And we now know that another way is possible: 100 per cent renewable energy can — and must — be achieved in the near future. Many of the First Nations and tribes of the Treaty Alliance are themselves leading by example.

The main question is when will Prime Minister Trudeau realize First Nations do not want and will not allow their territories to be used for the expansion of the tarsands?

Serge ‘Otsi’ Simon is Grand Chief of Mohawk Council of Kanesatake

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